


Home

by KittensAndTea



Category: Torchwood, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: A crossover literally no one wanted or asked for, F/M, Ianto is Night Valean, M/M, This is terrible, and i hate myself for it, i can't tag, i think that's all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 03:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12203373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittensAndTea/pseuds/KittensAndTea
Summary: Ianto wakes up in the dog park. Years later, Jack comes looking.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a two shot with a prologue ; I hate myself too.

Ianto is old. Not as old as Jack, certainly, but he's lived longer than a human lifespan, and hasn't aged in about a hundred years. Now he was aware this wasn't normal, even for Night Valeans, but he'd long since stopped caring. He had been taken from Night vale by the rift at age six, and it had been exactly twenty years later – to the second – that he had ceased ageing. He wasn't sure how related the two events were; knowing his home town, it could very well have been a coincidence.

He'd lived in Cardiff a long time. First, on the streets, then taken in by a small family. He kept well away from Torchwood, knowing they'd only hurt him. Many things happened. He'd ended up, to his luck, somehow being recruited by Torchwood one, anyway. It hadn't lasted for too long, when Canary Wharf happened. He had gotten out of there fast. But found himself attempting to care for a Pteranodon in a barn (There was a pteranodon that returned to Night Vale every six years, so he knew a bit about them). She had the odd diet of sandwiches, leftover pizza, random meat scraps, and chocolate, as he tried to put his life back together. It was after about a month that Ianto, still unable to buy proper food for the pteranodon that he had named Myfanwy, decided to try contacting the Torchwood branch stationed in Cardiff. He supposed everything went downhill from there. There were ups, sure. Jack was one – somehow choosing to be with over literally anyone else (because he could have anyone). Tosh, and Owen, even Suzy and Gwen. They'd all been his friends. Then he'd died.

Dying hurt, he found. Well, the way he died hurt. He hadn't expected to wake up.

He woke up in the dog park.


	2. Chapter 1

He didn't know it was the dog park, not immediately. He woke up at the edge of a small town, with a bloodstained man standing over him, head tilted as he studied Ianto.

The man mumbled something about his uncle, as Ianto slowly shuffled away from him. Ianto did not have a weapon on him anymore, and the man looked dangerous.

Glancing around, Ianto could see the town he was in now. It wasn't really a town, consisting of a few buildings in various stages of completion. Some of them looked pretty clumsily constructed, too.

"Where am I?" Ianto asked, in his clear professional voice. The man blinked, and then smiled. The smile looked almost unnatural, and Ianto had to suppress a shiver. He'd seen far worse than a bloodstained man, with an inhuman smile and a gash over a tattoo of a closed eye on his forehead. He was unsettling, all the same.

"Desert Bluffs ... Desert Bluffs Two!" He said proudly. Ianto had to allow himself to process that answer, but the man had more to say, "Except the people from Night Vale refuse to call it anything except 'The Desert Otherworld' and 'The Dog Park'. I don't even really know what a dog park is!"

He seemed about to continue rambling, so Ianto interrupted, "Wait, this is Night Vale's Dog Park?" Ianto asked, eyes wide. He finally pushed himself up to his feet, standing at eye level to the other man.

"Well, yes! We did not have a dog park in Desert Bluffs. There used to be a perfectly legal field for activities and visiting carnivals, but of course StrexCorp got rid of the horrible place – they built over it obviously – and disposed of any carnivals that came our way. Things like carnivals disrupt productivity, you understand." Ianto let the man continue to ramble, tuning him out while he thought.

Ianto's childhood best friend had snuck into the dog park, and Ianto thought he was lost for good. The boy had returned three days later, and claimed to have no memories of how he'd escaped.

"Which way is the entrance to the dog park?" He questioned, once again interrupting the man's tirade. He didn't seem all that bothered, continuing to smile strangely.

"I don't actually know, but Carlos went in that direction when he ... Left ..." The man's smile faltered momentarily, and Ianto thought he could see the arm pointing out the direction to him shaking, almost imperceptibly. He blinked.

"Alright, thank you ..." Standing, he nodded his thanks to the strange man, before turning in the direction he was indicating.

"Kevin! My name's Kevin!" The man, Kevin, yelled after him. "If you see Carlos ... Tell him I said hi!" Ianto threw him a wave rather than answering, wholly unsure how to, if he was honest.

It took a while, walking through the 'Desert Otherworld', before he found the entrance to the dog park. He stood before it, wondering what sort of Night Vale he'd find on the other side. It must have changed since he had last seen it, certainly.

Letting out a short breath, he pushed the gates as hard as he could. They swung out slowly, stopping with only just enough room for Ianto to squeeze through them. It was dark outside, although it was often dark in Night Vale, even when the sun was up. He found little different, oddly, eyeing the museums as he made his way towards Ralph's. It was only once he had entered the Ralph's, that he remembered he lacked the correct currency to actually buy anything.

_"Breaking news!"_ He looked up, realising tthe supermarket speakers were playing a radio broadcast. It was a Night Vale Community Radio broadcast, by the sound of it. _"Someone new has entered our town, dear listeners, but where he appeared from ... This stranger emerged from the dog park – which, of course, we all know is illegal to talk about, think about, or look at, let alone go into or come out of. More on this story as it develops."_

Ianto tilted his head, but the radio host knowing everything that was going on inside Night Vale was not unusual. However, stranger to Night Vale he wasn't.

He patted himself down, finding his earpiece in his back pocket eventually. He hummed half heartedly and pressed it into his ear. In his experience, it was possible to listen to Night Vale radio on just about anything, as long as it was set right.

After he'd tuned the earpiece correctly, satisfied with the clarity of the radio presenter's voice through the small device, he exited Ralph's again, a new destination in mind.

The trip to the bank was longer than he would have liked, so he mostly concentrated the the radio host's voice – his name was Cecil, according to his boyfriend, who had phoned in not long after the first segment about Ianto. Ianto made it to the bank as Cecil went to the weather.

He walked inside, glancing around. The bank hadn't changed much either, except there was a coin counting machine in the corner now. He walked up to the window where a bored looking bank teller sat. She glanced up, eyebrows raised.

"I'd like to withdraw money." Ianto said politely. She looked him up and down, before shrugging.

"Do you have a card?" She asked in an uninterested tone. Ianto shook his head, and she slid a withdrawal slip towards him. He filled the slip out easily, before passing it back to the teller.

Her eyebrows rose into her hairline when she checked it over, but, upon confirming its legitimacy, she looked back up at him.

"Your bank has been frozen, as the bank was uncertain of your return. Alive." She told him monotonously. He nodded, having expected this.

"How much is it to thaw it?" He questioned. She checked something below the counter.

"One hundred dollars or two and a half live goats." She told him at length.

He told her to withdraw the fee from his account, along with the money he'd requested. She grabbed the flamethrower that all bank tellers kept under their desks for cases like this, and walked through a door towards where he assumed they kept the accounts.

The weather ended.

_"Ladies and gentlemen, an update to the story on the stranger in town!"_

Ianto perked up, wondering what this update could be.

_"The stranger went to the bank, everyone. Now, this may not sound all that strange to you, but listen to this; he withdrew money from an account! Or, he is currently in the process of withdrawing money from an account. What does this mean, you may be asking. Well, this means that maybe the stranger isn't quite so much of a stranger as we thought!_

_"I've sent intern Charlie over to the bank to interview him. It's been rather slow since Charlie became an intern, so she hasn't gotten a chance to do all that much yet!"_

Ianto chuckled as Cecil moved onto rounding off another story he'd been following over the course of the broadcast, and the bank teller returned with the money he'd withdrawn.

"Have a nice day." She told him monotonously, dumping the money he'd requested in front of him and redirecting her attention to her computer screen. Ianto stepped outside, and leant against the bank to wait for intern Charlie.

It was five minutes later that a girl trotted up, panting as she slowed to a stop next to him. "Are you the new guy?" She asked between breaths. He nodded, and she grinned, "Oh, I'm so glad I made it while you were still here!"

Ianto smiled politely, "Well, I wouldn't want to risk your internship by leaving before you got here, besides, I have nowhere else to be."

She blinked up at him, "How did you know I was coming? The bank doesn't play - wait, don't answer yet!" She fumbled for her phone, pressing the number she wanted to dial, and then holding it out between them. "Cecil? Are you getting this?" At the radio host's affirmative, she grinned, "Awesome! So, stranger, who are you?"

Her words were echoed through his earpiece, and Ianto deemed to pull it out. "My name is Ianto Jones." He told her, pocketing the earpiece and returning his gaze to her face.

"Okay ..." She drawled, clearly trying to think of what else to ask. "Uh ... Where did you come from? Why were you in the dog park? Why do you have a bank account here? How did you get into the dog park? How did you know I was coming? How -?" Ianto cut her off, holding up his hand.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down." He told her, smiling, "You answered your first question yourself; the dog park. I don't know why I was in there, though. I woke up there after I died. I have a bank account here because Night Vale used to be my home, and I knew you were coming because I was listening to the radio. Now, I have my own question: what year is it?"

She blinked, taking in his answer, and slowly replied, "Uh ... 2015 ... What do you mean you woke up there after you died?"

"I was in a city, quite far from here, over a lot of ocean, and I died. It's been six years since that happened, I suppose." He frowned slightly, wondering how that whole debacle had ended. He didn't really have all that much desire to leave Night Vale right then though – really he just wanted to sleep – and he doubted he'd be able to find out from Night Vale.

He wondered how Jack was.

"Seriously? Six years?" The intern's eyes widened. Ianto nodded slowly.

"Yes. Um, apologies for cutting this interview short, but I think there's something I have to do." He smiled at her, and she blinked in return, before nodding.

"Alright, mr. Jones ..." She mumbled as he turned and walked away.

He pulled the earpiece back out of his pocket and pressed it back into his ear to listen to the end of the broadcast, his feet taking him into the Public Records Office. This was going to be a long night.

-

It was early in the morning when he walked out of the Public Records Office, a thin Manila folder with his name written in the corner.

He walked back down to Mission Grove Park, where he found a bench to sit and read the folder. It contained an overview of his life, but until he was stanched by the rift; an admittedly short document, especially competed to what they no doubt had on other residents. What he was really interested in was the family tree in the back, as well as current ownership of what used to be his home. It was, apparently, owned by one Abby Carlsberg. He hummed thoughtfully, turning over to the up to date family tree.

He first noticed that he had a younger sister, and that she was dead. She did, however, have two children – a daughter and a son – with an unknown father. Both were still living; Abby Carlsberg, and Cecil Palmer.

It seemed that Abby Carlsberg was his next stop, then. All this walking was getting rather boring.

-

He knocked on his niece's door, humming tunelessly as he surveyed the house. It had barely changed in the years he'd been gone.

The door opened and a man stood just inside, looking at Ianto confusedly. Ianto assumed this must be the 'Steve Carlsberg' that the family tree said that his niece was married to. He asked as much.

"Uh ... Yeah, that's my name ..." Steve replied, looking even more confused.

"Good. Is Abby home?" Ianto asked. Steve shook his head – she was out with their daughter for breakfast – and invited him in for coffee to wait. Ianto accepted, sitting down in the kitchen to wait for the coffee.

They made awkward small talk for about twenty minutes, Steve beating around the bush and Ianto not particularly inclined to share information with him yet. It was almost half an hour until Abby and her daughter returned.

What followed was a rather lengthy explanation of who he was, followed by a semi-catch up of Night Vale goings on from Abby.

She suggested he talk to her brother, Cecil – apparently the very same one whom he'd been listening to on the radio earlier – both as an introduction, and to get a more detailed catch up. He agreed, bidding her farewell, and accepting her directions.

It was about 11:00 am, not that time was real, when he arrived at Cecil Palmer's house. Apparently, 11:00 am was breakfast time for the Palmer residence on Saturday.

The man who answered the door had luscious hair and brown skin, and Ianto was fairly sure that this was the boyfriend, Carlos. Cecil had been forthcoming with his description of the man during his broadcast yesterday.

He was let in with minimal fuss – Cecil eager to meet someone new, and Carlos unable to deny him the excitement. They had spare bacon. No toast, apparently, because wheat and wheat-by-products were banned. That was something new, at least.

Carlos and Cecil sat close together on one side of the table, pressed together down their sides despite being on different chairs. Ianto sat across from Cecil, sipping another cup of coffee which Carlos generously made for him. If Ianto was honest, it was greatly appreciated; he hadn't slept since he's woken up in the dog park the day before.

Cecil and Carlos seemed still to act as they had the day they'd started dating. It made Ianto smile slightly. He hoped the few blood relations he seemed to have left would deem fit to get to know him better.

Looking down at a sheet of paper inside the folder with his name on it, he read, under expected occupation, 'city records keeper'. This was going to be interesting.


	3. Chapter 2

Jack was back in Cardiff eight years after Ianto died. It was the anniversary, Jack supposed. The reason, however, that Jack had returned was not this. Jack needed to speak with Ianto's sister. Rhiannon hadn't moved since the last time he'd been.

She was rather surprised to find him on her doorstep, he thought. She was older now. Her kids were at school; it was midday on a Thursday.

She ushered him in, frowning. She probably would have turned him away if she was someone less polite.

"I need to ask you about your brother." He told her, at length. They had sat in silence for about five minutes before he'd decided to speak.

"What about him?" She asked flatly, eyeing him with what might have been resentment, or something else.

"His personnel file has him as unknown age, unknown birthdate, and not applicable for a lot of categories. Torchwood One, apparently knew very little about him. They don't even have his recruitment recorded." Rhiannon blinked, then shrugged, looking off to his right about a centimetre.

"So? What do you want to know, Jack?" She asked him, sighing deeply.

"Who was he?" Jack asked simply. She smiled humourlessly.

"I don't know. He wasn't my brother, he was my uncle. He looked the same the last time I saw him as the day I was born. I think my grandparents took him in. He would have been quite young, but I'm not sure when exactly, or what age." She shrugged, "That's about all that I knew about him, besides what he was like. He never talked about where he was from, at least not to me. But I think it was somewhere far away. To him, anyway."

That was all the information she could give Jack, he could tell. He changed the subject. They spent an hour reminiscing about Ianto Jones, before he bid her farewell and took his leave.

It was time to find where Ianto Jones was from. Although how he would do that, he wasn't entirely certain.

-

Jack had mulled over the predicament for a while. It was, in the end, something he remembered hearing Ianto say, offhand, to Tosh that gave him his only lead; 'You think this place is impossible? Night Vale was so much worse.'

He couldn't remember the context of the sentence, but Night Vale sounded like a place name.

Sitting on a library computer, Jack worked fast. The first problem that he encountered was that there was nowhere on any easy to access map named Night Vale. The first mention of it, and the easiest to find, was mention of a place that went by this name in something called the University of What Is It, talking about a professor of theirs disappearing after travelling to somewhere named Night Vale.

He accessed an unreleased FBI map, finally, and found a location in the middle of the desert that apparently displayed some strange phenomena. This seemed like somewhere to start. He set the coordinated into his vortex manipulator, before shipping the computer and disappearing from the library.

-

He arrived in the middle of a desert road, standing about fifty metres away from a sign that read _Welcome to Night Vale_. This, then, was the place he was looking for. He wasn't sure what he was planning on doing now that he was here, though.

Something he was certainly not planning for, however, was his vortex manipulator to start playing the local radio as he walked closer to the town itself. Nor was he expecting the host of said local radio to begin talking about someone who sounded an awful lot like himself.

_"Listeners, it appears a stranger has just appeared in our town. And yes, I do mean appeared. He flashed into existence just beyond the sign that welcomes visitors to our lovely little home. Ladies and gentlemen, he's wearing a long, blue coat, and his hair is dark, rather nice. Not as nice as my wonderful husband, Carlos', perfect hair! But even so. He's looking at a strap on his wrist, right now. I think he's confused about something."_ His vortex manipulator told him, in smooth, deep tones.

Jack looked up, stepping into the town itself and looking around.

_"Oh? Listeners, I'm getting a call. I know I shouldn't answer my phone on the show, but my – ah – uncle never calls unless it's an emergency, so I'm going to allow him on ... Hello! What is it you're calling about?"_

And then Jack heard a familiar voice. It stopped him completely in his tracks.

_"Hello, Cecil. It's nice of you to let me on air. I'd just like to say something to the stranger – or if he's not able to get this, to anyone who sees the stranger around. If you're who I think you are, and I pride myself in my intuition, as you know, then please come find me at the Public Records Office. People of Night Vale, please set aside your traditional greeting of strangers and give our visitor directions to get him here. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for this time Cecil, I won't disrupt your broadcast any further."_

_"Any time, uncle! You know I'm happy to help anytime! I hope you plan on giving me an explanation, though."_

A laugh, _"Of course, bye!"_

As the news moved onto other things, Jack still stood still. The voice he'd just heard was that of someone who he'd held, dying, in his arms. And yet it sounded like him, here, now. Jack broke into a fast walk, only to be stopped by a passerby.

"You're going the wrong way, sir. The Public Records Office is that way." She smiled politely. He nodded his thanks, and quickened his pace.

After being stopped a total of seven different times, he finally made it to the records office. Outside, leaning against the door, was someone he never thought he'd see again.

"Ianto?" He breathed. The man who looked like Ianto jumped, turning to face him.

"Jack! It is you!" He called, moving to close the distance between them. Jack was still routed to the spot, staring wide eyed.

"It's -", Ianto paused, checking his pocket watch quickly, "I'm done for the day, actually. It may be easier if we talk in my apartment." He said carefully, looking at Jack through his eyelashes. Jack nodded mutely, his brain taking longer than usual to properly process what he was seeing. He followed Ianto closely.

His hand reached out for Ianto's before he could properly process the movement, but Ianto noticed. Ianto took his hand in return, not glancing down at them.

"I loved you." Jack managed, because he had – did, still – and he need Ianto to know that, because he'd been too afraid to say it when he was dying in his arms, and the words he spoke to a ghost did not account for the real thing.

"I know." Ianto said, gently squeezing his hand, "I still love you, Jack."

They made it back to his apartment in only a small amount of time. Jack wasn't paying all that much attention. His brain finally caught up, and he wondered if this was really the real Ianto. Real or not, he listen to the other man's story.

Ianto had not yet figured out why he was here, alive.

Jack promised his help, because what else could be worth his time more than this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's that ; thank god.

**Author's Note:**

> All three chapters were written in four hours between 11 pm and 3 am, and posted straight after. I hate this work a lot.
> 
> My Tumblr's mochatea-and-kittens ; follow me if you want.


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